The sceptic follows a rule: “do not hold beliefs”. I think whether or not anyone can actually follow the rule seems a very serious issue. Here’s a thought that you inspired: maybe the rule is still a good one even if impossible to fully follow. Maybe it’s more like an ideal target that the sceptic strives for, and while he can’t ever reach it, he tries as much as he can, because he finds it useful or appealing in some way. Crucial to note is that he doesn’t follow the rule because he thinks it’s a “true epistemology”. He just made the rule up, like the rules of chess. A rule he made up, perhaps looking for peace of mind? I loved the section where you invoked Epiphenomenalism as a counter to the apraxia objection - using dogmatist views as speculative solutions to criticism is exactly the kind of thing ancient sceptics like Carneades used to do. I bet he’d love that reply.
"The sceptic follows a rule: “do not hold beliefs”" Why? the sceptic can hold or maintain beliefs it's just that the sceptic isn't sure, the sceptic can hold all beliefs
@@creativecommentsCC Maybe some people who call themselves “sceptic” are happy to hold beliefs. There was an ancient dispute between two kinds of scepticism in Greece - those who hold beliefs that are “plausible”. but aren’t sure, and those who practice total suspension of judgement. I think the latter is a more interesting form of scepticism, and that was what I was talking about.
"impossible to fully follow" so you never change your view in anything in life? wow. What do you mean by "fully follow"? Always changing beliefs??? well obviously that must be the made up rule YOU made up
"ancient dispute between two kinds of", it's a false dichotomy, I hold judgement more than usual perhaps but reality is more than two labels, reality is inefable
Can't the skeptic and the non-skeptic simply agree to ground epistemology on appearances? This I think is the jist of how I see it, we are all going off appearances and we happen to share many appearances so then we can talk about some epistemic principles we appear to share. Wonderful presentation as usual!
What makes you think that there is such a thing as „we“? -The skeptic may not consider himself to be justified to believe that solipsism is false. -Since different minds may associate other sets of appearances with the same words, it may be unknowable what another person perceives. -Just because we talk the same doesn’t necessarily mean that we share the same appearance. -So if we talk about our appearances in public language it may has nothing to do with our private perceptions. At least not in a referential sense. -So it could be unknowable if we have the same appearances or not, and because of this it may be impossible to compare appearances.
@@Mon000 But is this genuinely believe? I could imagine that it is more a suspension of disbelief like with a piece of fiction. It could be mere pretending as if p is true. But okay you can do this there is nothing wrong with it. I guess it appears plausible that I perceive a mind-independent strawberry with intrinsic redness that continuous to be with all its properties even if I don’t perceive it.
I guess I am just going to suspend judgment about suspending judgment. -Maybe I have believes and need believes to act or maybe believes are redundant and replaceable, who knows. -I could imagine that one could replace believes with a suspension of disbelief like with a piece of fiction. -If I talk or think about a piece of fiction as if it where true, then this doesn’t mean that I genuinely believe it to be true. -But I can play pretend and act as long as I desire, as if it where true. -I am not so sure if following appearances leads to conservatism. -The skeptic can still self-reflect and change his attitudes towards appearances. -A past appearance could appear absurd to me tomorrow because I reasoned about its apparent plausibility to me. -Reasoning may not make me believe something but it can change how plausible something appears to me.
Re conservatism, it seems that learning skeptical arguments could itself count as a kind of "training" that will then be the source of further appearances. There could be "skeptical appearances" -- appearances that incline a person to question and criticise commonly held attitudes.
I think I practice skepticism in the sense that I view my beliefs as a spectrum of probability wich is what makes me more open minded, I don't see my beliefs as useless because I'm not 100% sure of most of them
You give so much "Well, Actually...." energy. wtf does even a 100% sure belief mean? How do you decide whether a belief is 100% surely true? You don't need a justification for your beliefs nor do you owe anyone any justification. You can just go by the vibes of the belief. Now you beliefs lead to effect your actions and your actions will have consequences, and there are consequences that you want and others that you do not want. Eventually you will filter out beliefs which are good at giving you your desired consequences and those beliefs are usually complimented by calling them "true beliefs". Only reason to give up a belief is if it becomes useless in delivering desired consequences or you get a more effective belief. Not because some nerd PRESENTED YOU WITH SOME COUNTER ARGUMENT. Human language in any form or human senses in any way are unable to discover the Truth, if something like that even exists. Presenting Arguments and counter-arguments is just a cultural thing. Kind of hobby for "intellectual elite" to rationalize stuff for semi-educated/semi-intellectual peasants. Who believes anymore in plato's forms or platonis' realms or descartes musings or kants rationalizations or marx's musing? Tomorrow even derrida or rorty will be outdated and seem ridiculous. But you know what won't be outdated? People picking up new beliefs because they are better at delivering desired consequences. Only if people in west stop mas*urbat*ing to plato since 3000 years. Whole western philosophy is just an unending attempt to find plato's realm of forms without sounding ridiculous, i.e a heavenly source of certainty and objectivity.
@@saimbhat6243 "wtf does even a 100% sure belief mean?" well, actually can mean many things and absolutely nothing at the same time, you can give it a margin of error so that 99.9% count as 100% or you can be precise and in that case it wouldn't be a belief (supposedly) it would be logicaly true "How do you decide whether a belief is 100% surely true?" logic and evidence I don't know what you up to in next part of the response, honestly, this comment section and video sounds like academic gibberish... but hey, I could be wrong
@@creativecommentsCCTesting the probablility of beliefs by "Logic and evidence", that works for empirical observations. E.g: Apple falling downwards from tree, or two electrons moving away from each other. 100 kgs being heavier to lift that 10 kgs etc. And I don't think anybody would have disagreements over empirically verifiable prepositions. What about metaphysical truths or moral prepositions? I thought these were the things that people disagree over. I thought skepticism of metaphysical claims made a person a skeptic. Is there any skeptic who doesn't believe that a punch will hurt him?
Had to think about it for a bit. The last part about epiphenomenalism didn't make sense to me. Is the argument that since the mind cannot influence action, one could still somehow make decisions on whether or not to eat the birthday cake, or other complex topics?
Yes, though assuming that decisions are mental states, those decisions wouldn't influence your behaviour. The idea is that on the epiphenomenalist model, mental representations have no casual powers, but people still perform exactly the same behaviours. Instead of mental representations causing behaviours, the mental representations and the behaviours have a common cause. If we grant that this model might, in principle, turn out to be true, then we should grant that belief is not necessarily a prerequisite for ordinary behaviour (that's the argument at least).
I’ll have to rewatch the video again to reference specific portions, but if a skeptic leans on some epiphenomenal account to say that representations are completely separate from actions or inconsequential to them to claim that any position is devoid of consequences in the course of events, can’t an adoption of this whole conception and distinction be considered its own appearance/account and therefore a position (appearance as defined in this video)? I’m trying to write this more clearly and I know there’s a way to do it, but I’m not great at it - apologies. I think it essentially boils down to the standard “isn’t skepticism also a position” but rephrased to address one of the points towards the end of the video.
@@mastermusician The skeptic presumably isn't going to argue that epiphenomenalism is true. The idea is just that, if the interlocutor accepts that epiphenomenalism is at least epistemically possible -- if it might turn out to be true -- then it would be the case that ordinary behaviour is possible without belief.
@@KaneB I understand that. With that in mind, can’t ‘a’ (where ‘a’ is your reply - the possibility that something is true) in and of itself be considered a belief that the supposed skeptic holds? What’s being questioned is the skeptic’s “suspension of judgement,” not their actions, right?
I never seen this problem with my version of Skepticism: I believe in (the truth of a) certain propositions p, but - and that’s the gist of Skepticism - I do only suspend to claim to know (the truth of) p for sure. In such constellation the Apraxia Objection does not even occur. It only does when you hold Skepticism to suspend already belief in p. But why? It just causes troubles like Apraxia or self-contradictions (such Skeptic could not state anything, else he contradicts himself).
@@spongbobsquarepants3922 Yea, but I call it Skepticism because it just is. When a Skeptic holds that he suspends judgement to believe it makes so little sense that you have to interpret it as that they mean to suspend not their belief on something as true but their certainty of that belief being true. I think otherwise Skepticism makes no sense at all. Skepticism is all about being not sure of the truth about our beliefs. IMO fallibilism is just a fashion word of modern philosophers that grew bored and wanted a new label.
@@ostihpem Well, I'm just using the terms as they are used in contemporary epistemology. If the distinction between skepticism and fallibilism is a recent innovation, that's fine with me. However, it does strike me that if the earlier skeptics were what contemporary epistemologists would call fallibilists, then their arguments are rather puzzling. Agrippa's trilemma, for instance, is just as much a problem for fallibilist views of justification as it is for infallibilism. The objections to skepticism are also puzzling: as you note in your earlier comment, for fallibilism, the apraxia clearly doesn't arise.
@@KaneB For me it looks like Fallibilist = I believe in p, but p can be false = Skeptic. (Let p stand for an arbitrary proposition). I never encountered a Skeptic who _really meant to say_: I do not believe in p because p can be false. Because such one would have to be silent forever. Yes, I know many old greek texts give such an impression at first glance but if you read closer you will always find that they mean what Fallibilism says. I do not see an instance where Fallibilism and Skepticism would differ. For me Fallibilists are just sissy Skeptics who don't have the balls to stand up for such a controversial and hope-crushing position. Popper comes to mind. He always refused to be taken as a Skeptic because he instisted that in spite of Agrippa's Regress we could somehow get nearer truth. That's of course plain false and Agrippa's Regress is one way to literally prove it wrong. Karl was just too sissy/coy/gentleman to boldly crush the hopes of humanity and to say: from what we know we can never be sure of anything, maybe we slowly get nearer to truth, maybe we get away from it very fast, we have no clue eventually.
@ostihpem Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the history here but the extreme version of skepticism definitely feels like somebody's straw man version of what skeptics actually think.
Being skeptical does not mean that one does not find it justified to have a belief, but rather thinking that beliefs will not remain unchanged because today they have status X. It is not true that it is possible not to have any beliefs or that there is someone who functions in reality without having any beliefs. A skeptic considers that all beliefs are provisional and that given the circumstances, their rationality must be reviewed. The existence of a skeptic without beliefs is an oxymoron. He would be obliged to believe that he is justified in having the belief, that he is justified in not having beliefs. But as with Truth, a belief is just a circumstantial opinion that is useful to us as long as it is useful to us. Skepticism implies the recognition that this utility is not permanent and that one must inspect it from time to time. Nor is it true that a belief is, in the case of someone who is not a skeptic, an invariable idea. That is not the nature of the human mind. In this place, the universe, everything is constantly changing. Even unrevised beliefs. To assume it is different is just an illusion. It is that a belief is a region in our conceptual network and not an independent entity. Therefore, our intellectual evolution constantly redefines the beliefs we have, without being aware of it. Skepticism is the standard position of our mind. Reaching another conclusion is comforting but unrealistic.
I feel like apraxia discussion + Ted K’s discussion of “replacement activities” makes a lot of social behavior make sense. Like, maybe the apraxia objection is real! But instead of “stopping you from acting” it removes action from intention in a way that damages the human psyche over long term
I don’t see a reason for why you shouldn’t have intentions if you have desires in conjunction with the apparent plausibility of Ideas? You don’t need to hold a Idea to be true or hold that apparent plausibility is a indicator for truth, you can just act in accordance to apparent plausibility just because you desire to do so. No genuine believes seem to be necessary.
Historically in world religious traditions Universal skeptics advocated that no material beliefs are justified and therefore retreated to a hermitage or monastic lifestyle that to an extent stereotyped the person as an ideal ( mortification of limbs through trance states, entailing belief in no name no form, or ending life through sacrifice entailing a belief in tradition) or not. By failing to become the ideal skeptic ( cultural ideal qua conservative value of self/soul) does arguably send an existential message to the life generating social system that to be an authentic saint (authentic material skeptic, not a zombie skeptic as a brain washed autonomy whom eternally returns for food without the belief) is no picnic.
My video on unbelievable theories: ua-cam.com/video/AIFYlOJNYsE/v-deo.html
Small glance behind the curtain at the beginning.
The sceptic follows a rule: “do not hold beliefs”. I think whether or not anyone can actually follow the rule seems a very serious issue. Here’s a thought that you inspired: maybe the rule is still a good one even if impossible to fully follow. Maybe it’s more like an ideal target that the sceptic strives for, and while he can’t ever reach it, he tries as much as he can, because he finds it useful or appealing in some way. Crucial to note is that he doesn’t follow the rule because he thinks it’s a “true epistemology”. He just made the rule up, like the rules of chess. A rule he made up, perhaps looking for peace of mind?
I loved the section where you invoked Epiphenomenalism as a counter to the apraxia objection - using dogmatist views as speculative solutions to criticism is exactly the kind of thing ancient sceptics like Carneades used to do. I bet he’d love that reply.
"The sceptic follows a rule: “do not hold beliefs”" Why? the sceptic can hold or maintain beliefs it's just that the sceptic isn't sure, the sceptic can hold all beliefs
@@creativecommentsCC Maybe some people who call themselves “sceptic” are happy to hold beliefs. There was an ancient dispute between two kinds of scepticism in Greece - those who hold beliefs that are “plausible”. but aren’t sure, and those who practice total suspension of judgement. I think the latter is a more interesting form of scepticism, and that was what I was talking about.
"impossible to fully follow" so you never change your view in anything in life? wow. What do you mean by "fully follow"? Always changing beliefs??? well obviously that must be the made up rule YOU made up
"ancient dispute between two kinds of", it's a false dichotomy, I hold judgement more than usual perhaps but reality is more than two labels, reality is inefable
appeal to extremes
Appearances sound a lot like beliefs with extra steps.
Can't the skeptic and the non-skeptic simply agree to ground epistemology on appearances? This I think is the jist of how I see it, we are all going off appearances and we happen to share many appearances so then we can talk about some epistemic principles we appear to share. Wonderful presentation as usual!
What makes you think that there is such a thing as „we“?
-The skeptic may not consider himself to be justified to believe that solipsism is false.
-Since different minds may associate other sets of appearances with the same words, it may be unknowable what another person perceives.
-Just because we talk the same doesn’t necessarily mean that we share the same appearance.
-So if we talk about our appearances in public language it may has nothing to do with our private perceptions. At least not in a referential sense.
-So it could be unknowable if we have the same appearances or not, and because of this it may be impossible to compare appearances.
@@Opposite271 It appears that there is a we. It appears that we share the same appearances.
@@Mon000
But is this genuinely believe?
I could imagine that it is more a suspension of disbelief like with a piece of fiction.
It could be mere pretending as if p is true.
But okay you can do this there is nothing wrong with it.
I guess it appears plausible that I perceive a mind-independent strawberry with intrinsic redness that continuous to be with all its properties even if I don’t perceive it.
I guess I am just going to suspend judgment about suspending judgment.
-Maybe I have believes and need believes to act or maybe believes are redundant and replaceable, who knows.
-I could imagine that one could replace believes with a suspension of disbelief like with a piece of fiction.
-If I talk or think about a piece of fiction as if it where true, then this doesn’t mean that I genuinely believe it to be true.
-But I can play pretend and act as long as I desire, as if it where true.
-I am not so sure if following appearances leads to conservatism.
-The skeptic can still self-reflect and change his attitudes towards appearances.
-A past appearance could appear absurd to me tomorrow because I reasoned about its apparent plausibility to me.
-Reasoning may not make me believe something but it can change how plausible something appears to me.
Re conservatism, it seems that learning skeptical arguments could itself count as a kind of "training" that will then be the source of further appearances. There could be "skeptical appearances" -- appearances that incline a person to question and criticise commonly held attitudes.
I think I practice skepticism in the sense that I view my beliefs as a spectrum of probability wich is what makes me more open minded, I don't see my beliefs as useless because I'm not 100% sure of most of them
You give so much "Well, Actually...." energy. wtf does even a 100% sure belief mean? How do you decide whether a belief is 100% surely true?
You don't need a justification for your beliefs nor do you owe anyone any justification. You can just go by the vibes of the belief. Now you beliefs lead to effect your actions and your actions will have consequences, and there are consequences that you want and others that you do not want. Eventually you will filter out beliefs which are good at giving you your desired consequences and those beliefs are usually complimented by calling them "true beliefs".
Only reason to give up a belief is if it becomes useless in delivering desired consequences or you get a more effective belief. Not because some nerd PRESENTED YOU WITH SOME COUNTER ARGUMENT. Human language in any form or human senses in any way are unable to discover the Truth, if something like that even exists.
Presenting Arguments and counter-arguments is just a cultural thing. Kind of hobby for "intellectual elite" to rationalize stuff for semi-educated/semi-intellectual peasants. Who believes anymore in plato's forms or platonis' realms or descartes musings or kants rationalizations or marx's musing? Tomorrow even derrida or rorty will be outdated and seem ridiculous. But you know what won't be outdated? People picking up new beliefs because they are better at delivering desired consequences.
Only if people in west stop mas*urbat*ing to plato since 3000 years. Whole western philosophy is just an unending attempt to find plato's realm of forms without sounding ridiculous, i.e a heavenly source of certainty and objectivity.
@@saimbhat6243 "wtf does even a 100% sure belief mean?" well, actually can mean many things and absolutely nothing at the same time, you can give it a margin of error so that 99.9% count as 100% or you can be precise and in that case it wouldn't be a belief (supposedly) it would be logicaly true
"How do you decide whether a belief is 100% surely true?" logic and evidence
I don't know what you up to in next part of the response, honestly, this comment section and video sounds like academic gibberish... but hey, I could be wrong
@@creativecommentsCCTesting the probablility of beliefs by "Logic and evidence", that works for empirical observations. E.g: Apple falling downwards from tree, or two electrons moving away from each other. 100 kgs being heavier to lift that 10 kgs etc.
And I don't think anybody would have disagreements over empirically verifiable prepositions.
What about metaphysical truths or moral prepositions? I thought these were the things that people disagree over. I thought skepticism of metaphysical claims made a person a skeptic. Is there any skeptic who doesn't believe that a punch will hurt him?
Had to think about it for a bit. The last part about epiphenomenalism didn't make sense to me. Is the argument that since the mind cannot influence action, one could still somehow make decisions on whether or not to eat the birthday cake, or other complex topics?
Yes, though assuming that decisions are mental states, those decisions wouldn't influence your behaviour. The idea is that on the epiphenomenalist model, mental representations have no casual powers, but people still perform exactly the same behaviours. Instead of mental representations causing behaviours, the mental representations and the behaviours have a common cause. If we grant that this model might, in principle, turn out to be true, then we should grant that belief is not necessarily a prerequisite for ordinary behaviour (that's the argument at least).
Isnt an epiphenomenal account that says mental representations as inconsequential to actions itself an appearance/account anyway?
Interesting
Could you elaborate on your problem, please?
I’ll have to rewatch the video again to reference specific portions, but if a skeptic leans on some epiphenomenal account to say that representations are completely separate from actions or inconsequential to them to claim that any position is devoid of consequences in the course of events, can’t an adoption of this whole conception and distinction be considered its own appearance/account and therefore a position (appearance as defined in this video)?
I’m trying to write this more clearly and I know there’s a way to do it, but I’m not great at it - apologies.
I think it essentially boils down to the standard “isn’t skepticism also a position” but rephrased to address one of the points towards the end of the video.
@@mastermusician The skeptic presumably isn't going to argue that epiphenomenalism is true. The idea is just that, if the interlocutor accepts that epiphenomenalism is at least epistemically possible -- if it might turn out to be true -- then it would be the case that ordinary behaviour is possible without belief.
@@KaneB I understand that. With that in mind, can’t ‘a’ (where ‘a’ is your reply - the possibility that something is true) in and of itself be considered a belief that the supposed skeptic holds?
What’s being questioned is the skeptic’s “suspension of judgement,” not their actions, right?
I never seen this problem with my version of Skepticism: I believe in (the truth of a) certain propositions p, but - and that’s the gist of Skepticism - I do only suspend to claim to know (the truth of) p for sure. In such constellation the Apraxia Objection does not even occur. It only does when you hold Skepticism to suspend already belief in p. But why? It just causes troubles like Apraxia or self-contradictions (such Skeptic could not state anything, else he contradicts himself).
But that is just fallibilism. It can be confusing to call yourself a skeptic when you are just being a fallibilist
@@spongbobsquarepants3922 Yea, but I call it Skepticism because it just is. When a Skeptic holds that he suspends judgement to believe it makes so little sense that you have to interpret it as that they mean to suspend not their belief on something as true but their certainty of that belief being true. I think otherwise Skepticism makes no sense at all. Skepticism is all about being not sure of the truth about our beliefs. IMO fallibilism is just a fashion word of modern philosophers that grew bored and wanted a new label.
@@ostihpem Well, I'm just using the terms as they are used in contemporary epistemology. If the distinction between skepticism and fallibilism is a recent innovation, that's fine with me. However, it does strike me that if the earlier skeptics were what contemporary epistemologists would call fallibilists, then their arguments are rather puzzling. Agrippa's trilemma, for instance, is just as much a problem for fallibilist views of justification as it is for infallibilism. The objections to skepticism are also puzzling: as you note in your earlier comment, for fallibilism, the apraxia clearly doesn't arise.
@@KaneB For me it looks like Fallibilist = I believe in p, but p can be false = Skeptic. (Let p stand for an arbitrary proposition). I never encountered a Skeptic who _really meant to say_: I do not believe in p because p can be false. Because such one would have to be silent forever. Yes, I know many old greek texts give such an impression at first glance but if you read closer you will always find that they mean what Fallibilism says. I do not see an instance where Fallibilism and Skepticism would differ.
For me Fallibilists are just sissy Skeptics who don't have the balls to stand up for such a controversial and hope-crushing position. Popper comes to mind. He always refused to be taken as a Skeptic because he instisted that in spite of Agrippa's Regress we could somehow get nearer truth. That's of course plain false and Agrippa's Regress is one way to literally prove it wrong. Karl was just too sissy/coy/gentleman to boldly crush the hopes of humanity and to say: from what we know we can never be sure of anything, maybe we slowly get nearer to truth, maybe we get away from it very fast, we have no clue eventually.
@ostihpem Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the history here but the extreme version of skepticism definitely feels like somebody's straw man version of what skeptics actually think.
Being skeptical does not mean that one does not find it justified to have a belief, but rather thinking that beliefs will not remain unchanged because today they have status X.
It is not true that it is possible not to have any beliefs or that there is someone who functions in reality without having any beliefs.
A skeptic considers that all beliefs are provisional and that given the circumstances, their rationality must be reviewed.
The existence of a skeptic without beliefs is an oxymoron. He would be obliged to believe that he is justified in having the belief, that he is justified in not having beliefs.
But as with Truth, a belief is just a circumstantial opinion that is useful to us as long as it is useful to us. Skepticism implies the recognition that this utility is not permanent and that one must inspect it from time to time.
Nor is it true that a belief is, in the case of someone who is not a skeptic, an invariable idea. That is not the nature of the human mind. In this place, the universe, everything is constantly changing. Even unrevised beliefs. To assume it is different is just an illusion.
It is that a belief is a region in our conceptual network and not an independent entity. Therefore, our intellectual evolution constantly redefines the beliefs we have, without being aware of it.
Skepticism is the standard position of our mind. Reaching another conclusion is comforting but unrealistic.
I feel like apraxia discussion + Ted K’s discussion of “replacement activities” makes a lot of social behavior make sense.
Like, maybe the apraxia objection is real! But instead of “stopping you from acting” it removes action from intention in a way that damages the human psyche over long term
I don’t see a reason for why you shouldn’t have intentions if you have desires in conjunction with the apparent plausibility of Ideas?
You don’t need to hold a Idea to be true or hold that apparent plausibility is a indicator for truth, you can just act in accordance to apparent plausibility just because you desire to do so. No genuine believes seem to be necessary.
Historically in world religious traditions Universal skeptics advocated that no material beliefs are justified and therefore retreated to a hermitage or monastic lifestyle that to an extent stereotyped the person as an ideal ( mortification of limbs through trance states, entailing belief in no name no form, or ending life through sacrifice entailing a belief in tradition) or not. By failing to become the ideal skeptic ( cultural ideal qua conservative value of self/soul) does arguably send an existential message to the life generating social system that to be an authentic saint (authentic material skeptic, not a zombie skeptic as a brain washed autonomy whom eternally returns for food without the belief) is no picnic.
I haven't seen it yet, but nice video
how do skeptics make their life meaningfull, then?